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Beautiful freak in Ecuador’s life raft of the frogs

By Rowan Hooper

(Image&colon; Peter Lipton)

FROGS struggle to capture the public’s imagination. Perhaps conservationists should make this their poster child&colon; the gloriously freakish fringe tree frog (Cruziohyla craspedopus). It looks like it belongs in Pan’s Labyrinth or a Hayao Miyazaki fantasy. In fact, this individual lives in something almost as magical&colon; Balsa de los Sapos, “the life raft of the frogs”.

Balsa de los Sapos aims to insure against frog loss. Its scientists collect amphibians – sometimes the last known individuals of their species – and keep them in temperature-controlled, fungus-free “life rafts” (see photo). When they die, their DNA is stored. “Maybe those species will be brought back to life in the future with new cloning technologies,” says director Andres Merino-Viteri.

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Back to the fringe tree frog… I wish I could report that it can speak, or has a magic stone in its mouth, but it’s simply a rarely seen, unthreatened frog that lives in the high canopy of the Amazon. It is big for a tree frog, growing up to 87 millimetres long, and is found in a range of colours, from green to blue to purple. Actually, I can live with those qualities for my poster frog.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Prince among frogs”